I Am Twice Gifted

*I originally published this post to another blog in the middle of November, 2017.

I can sing. I can write. I can act. I can dance. I can grow lots and lots of sweet potatoes.

I can even whip together a pretty good smoothie.

But none of those can compare to the incredibly glamorous, heart-stopping talents that have changed my and my family’s lives.

Time flies

The first talent is my great sense of time. I read last year that right-brain dominant people have no sense of time. This is my husband.

ME: “Do you know you were gone for two whole hours?!”

HIM: “Oh. I thought it had only been about thirty minutes.”

I am what they call “whole-brain” dominant, with neither side of my brain vying for special attention, so I can actually tell how much time has passed.

It comes in handy in the middle of the night when I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. Hmm, I think it’s been about fifteen minutes since I went to the bathroom. Let me see the watch. Yep. Fourteen minutes and thirty-five seconds.

“What time is it?” J will ask when he wakes up to go to the bathroom.

I figure I’ve been awake for about half an hour, so without looking at the time I tell him. And I am accurate within five minutes.

This gift serves me well when I look at the clock in the kitchen before going outside. “I want to be back in fifteen or twenty minutes,” I’ll say to myself.

Then I’ll go outside, do whatever I’m doing, and when I return to the house, what da ya know? It’s no more than twenty minutes later.

I’m a wannabe thermometer

I don’t know what it is. I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with brain dominance. I think it has to do with having grown up in Minnesota with parents who were constantly obsessed about the outside temperature, especially in the winter.

But I can go outside, and within five minutes – often within thirty seconds – I can tell you what the temperature is within four degrees.

No, I’m serious. I can. Isn’t that awesome? Shouldn’t I be nominated for a Nobel prize or something?

Case in point: this morning I went out, and after a minute I thought to myself, “Okay, it did not hit the predicted low of forty-one. It’s more like in the upper forties, maybe fifty?”

I then looked at the thermometer, and lo and behold, it read forty-six degrees!

Imagine. You could hire me to announce the temperature at ball games or other outdoor events so that people know whether it’s getting dangerously hot or if they need to put a coat on. I could annoy people with my everlasting, “It’s not that hot. It’s just humid” comment.

Oh, wait. I already do that.

Anyway.

I have a great sense of time, as well as temperature. Gee, I could sign up to be one of those people you call to get the time and temperature!